


Interlude: Invictus

by Itherael



Series: Shall we Dance? [5]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Amon centric, F/M, Not overly graphic wound discussion, Poetry, Poetry as a way of coping, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 12:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14332689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itherael/pseuds/Itherael
Summary: There are nights when Amon thinks he’ll not be able to survive.A night of solitude, words of comfort, the fake conviction the King hanging from Yggdrasil tries to believe in.





	Interlude: Invictus

**Author's Note:**

> William Ernest Henley and [Half_SubmergedinPurgatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory) are both driving this muse and I couldn't have it any other way.
> 
> This is the first unpublished short of this series, so this baby is finally coming out of my drafts folder and being actually finished.

There are nights when Amon thinks he’ll not be able to survive.

When the wounds are too deep, when he dared to defy her and her vicious response didn’t took long to come. When their bloody tango seemed to reach its final accords, when the climax of their song couldn’t keep up because the melody made by bones, grunts and gasps was reaching its limits…

The moments when Eto becomes more and more frustrated after days and days of torture, of trying to break him with her poisonous tongue, her ability to twist his world and beliefs in just a matter of seconds but he doesn’t show her his weakness. When he can’t stand anymore but he’s too stubborn to admit defeat, to submit at her will,  _ when Nilfheim’s doors are so close, so close he can reach them if he just crawls a little closer… _

But he’s not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him broken at her feet.  _ (Not when he already is, but he’s a good pretender) _

Tonight is one of those nights.

She was vicious, a force to be feared,  _ angrier _ than usual. Silent, musing on her own while she worked in their usual routine, and unresponsive even when Amon decided to taunt, to play the game too. She seemed… distracted, but Amon has learned his lesson: she’s more dangerous distracted than when she’s focused.

She controls herself when she’s focused, when her mind is sorely fixed into one point, onto trying to make him come around with her ideals. But distracted? She’s unstoppable.

So he remains where he is, his back pressed against the wall and with moonlight shining through the unreachable window. He’s gasping, his flesh trying to knit itself together but there’s not enough, not enough energy,  _ not enough food  _ to fix the damage she has brought.

His only solace are the remnants of books scattered around the room, some of them he has piled next to him in order to distract himself from the pain.

His hand brushes a familiar cover, Book of Verses. It’s barely readable at this point, full of bloodstains that make the poems almost unintelligible, but he knows them by heart. The words within the book have brought him more comfort than prayers ( _ not in latin, never in latin because it’s used only with  _ her _ , but the old russian ones he had learned as a child, kneeling next to the Priest -Ghoul, Donato,  _ **_Father_ ** _ -, with a warm hand messing with his hair and a fond smile that hid sharp fangs _ ), but there’s one in particular that he keeps close to his heart.

Invictus.

He doesn’t need to open the book, but he still does. With weak, trembling limbs that used to be his hands, the remains of his fingers leaving bloody splashes to darken even more the dark pages, he finds the poem in question.

With a trembling voice, full of a conviction he doesn’t truly feel, Amon starts.

 

“ Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.”

 

_ (A lie, his soul is already hers) _

 

“In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

 

_ (He has cried, gasped and screamed, but never for mercy, never, never, never...) _

 

“Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.”

 

_ (But he is afraid, his conviction has already been bent) _

 

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.”

 

_ (His soul? There’s nothing left of it but the remains of the man he used to be. _

_ “Oh, no, Amon. You were never a man, never a person. You’re an amalgamation of ideals, never your true self. Will you ever show it to me? Will you ever accept what you truly are?”) _

 

It’s ironic that he finds solace in a poem that doesn’t represent him in the slightest, but he tries to believe that those words will become a reality.

That her touch hasn’t altered him.

But his fate had been set from the start. He was to become whatever she decided him to be, and for him to remain standing tall and proud, unbroken and unbound by her will.

It’s better to believe that he still is that man from so long ago, and not the monster she has helped create.

(The monster that admires a Goddess)

 

(But he’ll take whatever punishment from his Goddess had planned, and be the defiant Hero who will step on his own heart and bury any sympathy for the Beast)

**Author's Note:**

> [iterael](iterael.tumblr.com) @ tumblr


End file.
